General Jack Ripper

The downfall of many a woman is thinking she can fix a broken man.

In New England, we call that a normal level. If you don't have a couple beers in you while you're just walking around town, there's something wrong with you.

Well at least it's not pineapple... ...which is all I can say about this travesty of food modification.

Now that, is the proper attitude.

Such a waste, to see such splendor fall to ruin.

I just realized I haven't been here since July. Here's Into the Valley if you want to get caught up. I realize not everyone who watches these things follows me on YouTube. It was quite a straightforward mission.

SPACE LOBSTERS OF DOOM CONFIRMED?!

So what you're saying is, Rome to Victory is going to be wicked awesome?

It never ceases to amaze me how many people conveniently forget that you actually know how many copies of each game have actually been sold, and thus possess the actual information necessary to judge the relative monetary value of each particular fan base.

I wasn't aware we were going to solve the world's problems on a game forum.

Just a bit.

Indeed: Man, 4 and a half years ago. Still a great scenario.

Real solutions don't come from government, because by design they can only think far enough in the future to the next election day. We're better off investing in private industry, and working to promote a market demand for common sense solutions to problems. For example, look at how cheap home solar installation has become. What ten years ago was a prohibitive expense solely for million-dollar homes, is now so common Home Depot is selling solar roof panels for as little as a hundred bucks.

Your 120's are more likely to force the enemy to bunker up inside the building, instead of escaping it. In Shock Force, the buildings are relatively solid construction, meaning anything short of howitzer artillery is unlikely to smash them down. If the building is in no danger of collapsing, the enemy is not likely to abandon it. Your best bet is to flush the enemy out of the building with small arms, so they run outside into your barrage. Tank 105mm, and 120mm are also quite good at cleaning up buildings. With infantry against enemy in buildings, there is no real effective range. Maybe closing to within 50 meters will give some effect, but that is very dangerous. 5.56mm and 5.45mm cannot really penetrate the walls of most buildings to any real effect. The best solution is to hose the enemy enough to get them to displace, and then move into a new angle until you flush them out into a vulnerable position. In fact, your enemy with AK-47's is actually slightly better at shooting through walls than you are. Your GPMG's in 7.62mm etc, can deal with enemy in buildings, but only at medium ranges out to 300 meters or so. They also often need quite a lot of fire to have an effect. Antimateriel rifles like .50cal can go through buildings quite easily, and if you're playing as the USA, you'll want to bring you .50cal machineguns with you everywhere you go. So if you're dismounting from your Strykers, have the Strykers trail your infantry a few hundred meters to provide some supporting fire from their guns. I once set up a test scenario in which a complete assortment of buildings were subjected to maximum point barrages from every type of artillery in the game. Simple list of results: 60mm mortars will only knock down a small and medium single-story building, and not have enough ammo left for anything else. 81mm mortars will knock down small and medium single-story buildings, and small two-story buildings with just a few rounds left. 120mm mortars will knock down small two-story, and almost any size one-story building, with about a quarter or so ammo load for another target. 105mm will knock down everything in a single story, and most two-story buildings, using about half their ammo. 155mm and larger will reliably blast down anything up to three stories in height, using an average of one third their ammo. Four to eight story medium and large buildings are only really destroyable by aircraft bombs. Strangely enough, buildings with a larger footprint are easier to hit with more rounds, and are thus easier to destroy, but there seems to be a certain zone around three stories high where the building becomes too solid to destroy with artillery. At higher elevations of buildings, the smaller footprint becomes easier to knock down. An 8m-8m eight story building can be knocked down quite easily, while a big, chunky 24m-24m eight story building might have it's façade ripped up, but still standing after a maximum barrage from 155mm. So, in short, the enemy is far more likely to stick inside a building if it's not receiving enough artillery to knock it down. Dropping a few mortar rounds on it will likely provoke laughter, rather than the intended panic.

I actually played that one in hotseat mode once so I could go full aggro, and ended up with a massacre of the embassy staff, guards, and relief column.

I once built a test scenario in which a 12 plane squadron was attacking a literal fortress ringed with three layers of anti-aircraft defense consisting of 36 guns of three different types. Over the course of fifteen minutes, seven aircraft were shot down, but the fortress was effectively destroyed, and many AA guns were knocked out. Even if the aircraft is shot down, if it manages to release it's ordinance, the target will likely be hit anyway. In one example, the incoming aircraft was destroyed as soon as it started it's attack run, but the two 500lb bombs hit right on the money, knocking out three AA guns. I think bringing only two guns is hardly effective. It seems to me you'd want to have a ratio of four guns per attacking plane to get some reliable protection. I.E. bring a full battery of guns if you are going to bring any. Every time an AA gun shoots at a plane, there seems to be a die roll that determines the outcome. It's not like the old system where aircraft were an invisible box with an amount of 'structure points' that could be degraded over time until it's destroyed like a building. The new system seems to roll a die for each gun firing at the aircraft, and upon a successful roll, the aircraft aborts it's attack, and on a 'critical hit' the aircraft is destroyed. So what you need to protect yourself is a few more guns to get a few more 'die rolls'. This is a very good point. When you have airplanes that are cheap enough to use in large quantities, they are often not very effective, but quantity has a quality all it's own. That one P-47 carrying bombs can ruin your day if it makes just one good attack, but that P-47 is also quite expensive. Or, you can simply buy a bunch of strafers, and use the psychological edge it gives you over your opponent. Hearing the 'aircraft' sound effect is often the only thing needed to give your opponent a bit of a fright. I do recall reading somewhere a call was put out to increase the amount of tracer rounds used by AA units, because the tracers themselves were more effective at scaring off planes than the guns themselves were at killing them.

I'd like to see a return of the old 'Move to Contact' command. Then the 'Hunt' command could revert back to something slightly more useful.

Right up until the shooting starts.

PM me.

Ah, Mother Jones. Always good for a laugh.

When I started this mission I asked myself, "Do I really need to wait until the reinforcing platoon and empty vehicles arrive before rescuing the special forces team?" It turns out the answer is, "No."

I used to use Shadowplay too, but stopped using it after an update broke it's ability to record OpenGL games. You're better off using an actual screen capture program like Bandicam, FRAPs, or even OBS and XSplit.